The Legality of 'character' Minimees

I think also, that getting bogged down in technicalities sometimes misses the bigger picture. In terms of fanworks, would it even be a good idea to pursue it if bothered by it? These are, after all, fans of whatever series and are merely expressing their love for it. There's also a good chance that they do spend money on official merchandise, so is going after your fanbase really a good idea when what they're doing isn't resulting in larger profit? If someone's really making a profit off a fan project or mass producing without permission, that does raise legal/ethical questions (especially mass producing). But otherwise some things are better left alone.

The thing I like about fan art type projects (dolls, fiction, cosplay, art, etc) is that it gives people the opportunity to be more than just passive viewers--they get to involve themselves in a much more active way and use some of their own creativity. I would also think it would tie people even more tightly to the things they are fans of which has the potential to actually benefit the company.

 

Careful; you're getting a little derogatory of the places we're contributing to the economy of Every culture has differences and none of them are "better" or "worse" than any other.

[Edit: I should also note that there's a difference between "western" and "westernized", and also a percieved superiority in the west of those places that are "westernized", hence this comment. Although it's really moot, because anything even vaguely considered a world power is pretty westernized.]

 

Well, will resin dolls ever be made by any of these companies? Will Jonny Depp create a number of Jack Sparrows made of resin, then sell them to the highest bidders? Will gamers decide that pixels aren't enough and start asking the companies for BJDs to play with?

Minime makers aren't ripping off another design and saying it's their's any more than people who sell their fanart at anime conventions say they created the characters. If DIM made a set of characters that were obviously -or even subtly- designed from something else, then sold them as originals, there would be reason to be angry, but as it is, no one is loosing money through what they're doing.

Individuals deciding they'd like a certain character aren't going to go to the makers of the character to ask for the doll to be made specifically for them, DIM is simply offering the opportunity to have characters in a medium that isn't usually accessible.

Simply; until you can start buying Ball Jointed Sephiroths from the makers of Final Fantasy, having DIM make him for you isn't going to cause anyone to loose money. Once he's available from the original creators, then DIM better stop, but till then, who's getting hurt?

 

People buy work from fan artists all the time--anime conventions always have an artist alley with tons of fan art stuff for sale. The people who sculpt the heads for DIM are artists themselves who have been commissioned by someone who wants a specific head. It is not at all uncommon for fans to commission various pieces of fan art.

It is a source of revenue, but not a large one. People selling other types of fan art (and also taking commissions) are also making revenue, or at least trying to (though not a large one)--they aren't just giving stuff away! It really is very similar and very much in the same spirit. Doll companies are businesses, but also artists as well, and in this case they are giving owners a chance to actually commission whatever head they desire which is pretty special. They aren't out to compete with other official merchandise, they aren't mass producing someone's likeness, they aren't making the bulk of their money off minimees. If it offends someone so much, then the best thing to do is not to purchase one (let your wallet do the talking ). But, I'm not sure what effect people are hoping to have by dredging this topic up over and over again when it's pretty clear that it's not really that big of an issue for DIM, all the minimee owners, or the doll community as a whole. While most people don't seem to have serious issues with the minimee project, when people do, it really does reach a level of hostility towards DIM and often times owners (for not being creative enough, or for being hypocritical, etc) that sometimes surprises me. This is a gray area, true, and so there are going to be some differing opinions, but this is really something that's between DIM, DIM's minimee customers, and DIM's legal advisors rather than the armchair copyright lawyers in the peanut gallery. I sometimes worry that topics like this do far more harm than good in terms of possibly dragging a company's name through the mud for something that has yet to create any legal problems or impact the community negatively (this seems to be a case of the community over policing that sometimes rears it's head) .

Besides, what about all the non-minimee fan art dolls? They're copying a likeness too without permission, and there's some that can be impressively close. It does seem hypocritical to gripe about one while giving the other a free pass, and perhaps that's what really bothers me the most and makes me think there maybe some other underlying reasons for the hostility directed at minimees (but hey, I could be wrong).

 

I think that it is most likely illegal to reproduce someone's intellectual copyrighted material into another medium. That's why a company that wants to make a doll of say a Bleach (anime ormanga) character, they have to get the artist or the anime company's approval (money is involved too).
I think that DIM hasn't gotten into trouble is b/c they limit the heads, and that's all they make. No clothes (no further copying), etc. 10 copies of anything are not worth a person's/company's time to sue over. I also think that Denny, is it?, would not make one of a person's likeness if that person contacted them and asked them to stop.
Its probably a case of "what they don't know, can't hurt them".
As far as a real person's likeness... not sure what legality there is.

 

Very aptly put!

 

Emphasis added by me. I work in the printing industry... and though Xerox (or any other equipment manufacturer) cannot be held at fault, employees of a copy center can be. I work for an internal print center now, only running copies for our parent company. However, I used to work at CopyMax and we were told in no uncertain terms that we were not to make copies of copyrighted material for customers, except under fair use (which is a lot less open to interpretation than many people think). While I'd worked there, if I'd helped a customer photocopy copyrighted material and I was caught, my job could be forfeit. (And believe me, it was immensely gratifying to be able to tell rude customers that no, I could not make color photocopies of their wedding photos that had a blatant copyright imprint in the corner).

So in the case of Minimees, I wonder where DIM would fall in that bracket... are they more like Xerox or more like the copy center employee?

I'd like to point out though, that as far as I know this would only apply in the U.S., since I'm not familiar with international copyright laws, and I'm especially in the dark regarding copyright laws in Asian countries.

As far as laws in the U.S. go, there is no "percentage" rule, or at least I have yet to see it listed anywhere on any site that is a verifiable resource. The law is based on whether the "derivative work" is recognizable as being derived from the original. So as long as it's noticeable that the copy was intentionally based on the copyrighted work, it's a violation. This would definitely hold true for fictional, created characters that were artistically represented (manga/video game/etc), but I'm not certain where the law stands on celebrities, as their face isn't technically a creative intellectual property.

 

If someone (in this case Korean celebs) asked them not to make heads of those specific people, and so he stopped making heads of those particular people then I'm ok with that. It's kind of taking things as they come up, if they come up. Sometimes it might, because people do have different ideas regarding the acceptability of fan art, but on the flip side, many times it won't be an issue. Anything involving fan art could be seen as a gray area. While there are many people that don't mind, there are some that do (think Ann Rice), but since someone might have an issue should all fan art be outlawed?

Because bjds have always been so easy to make into characteres, they lend themselves very well to fan art and people have been doing it long before minimees came along--people commissioning minimees is really just an extension of what has been prevalent for quite awhile. Also, for bjd hobbyists that are familiar with anime and manga, fan art isn't anything out of the norm. (Plus the legality of minimees and orginality of minimees has also come up multiple times before, hence my reaction).

The heads may not be as personal to the DIM sculptors (meaning while I'm sure they care very much about their work, they may not be personally interested in the likeness they've been commissioned to do), but it is very personal to the owner (who still has a lot of work to do once they receive the blank head). The owners are considering and treating their minimee heads just like fan art, because it was in that spirit that the commission took place. However, when a person takes commissions, they aren't always going to be personally excited by all the subjects they've been paid to create (or maybe I should say I would be very surprised if they were)--because they're doing something that some else has asked them to do (for money in any case), rather than something that they had an exciting idea for themselves. Heck, even if it's not a commission, people will still draw things because they think it'll sell--fan artists do want to sell their art work. That was actually a suggestion at an artist alley panel at a con I went to a few years ago--if you want to make money, pay attention to what sells. I'm not saying everyone thinks like that, but it's naive to assume that type of thinking doesn't happen. With all this in mind, holding minimees to a different standard (which is often what happens) doesn't seem right. And to a community that seems to be pretty accepting of fan art dolls in general, it's not surprising that minimees have gained rapid acceptance.

Minimee heads are very professionally done, but their limited quantity, limited profit, and commission type service is really not at all different from what already exists in other forms. To copy a doll would create outcry, because they would be directly recasting something and passing it off as something else (either as an original, or something made from scratch by another company), and the original artistry isn't there. DIM is not claiming that the head of celeb X isn't really celeb (or character for that matter) X, but something else entirely. They aren't lying about what they're creating. They are also sculpting from scratch, so the artistry is all theirs. Comparing a minimee to a recast doll is really comparing apples and oranges.

 

While that is true, most countries worldwide agree on the general terms of copyright legislation under the Berne Convention. That includes Korea, Japan, the USA and about all European countries. It is very likely that if something constitutes a copyright infringement in the U.S., it also constitutes one in Korea and Japan - a lot likelier than assuming that though it is one in the U.S., it may not be one elsewhere.

But even if a country has not signed the Berne Convention and a product that would be a copyright infringement is thus technically legal in that country, it is only legal within that country´s domestic market; anywhere else it´s still a copyright infringement.

Err... not quite. The lines of law are pretty clear.

Nobody but the original creator/copyright holder (or his licensees) has the right to copy and distribute a work or any derived merchandise, or grant permission to do so. Full stop.

That goes for fan art, fan fiction, fan subs, AMVs, model kits or dolls, cosplay costumes, jewelry and knick knacks, doujinshi... pretty much anything. Fans need to be aware of the fact that no matter how much they may love a series/character, that does not give them any legal rights to it.

Fortunately, most copyright owners tolerate and some even support fan works, so even though most fan works are technically illegal, there´s no problem. But if a copyright owner doesn´t want any fan works to be made or distributed, the law is on their side.

A well-known Western example is Anne Rice who does not permit any fan works to her novels. The Japanese company Aquaplus has asked fans on their website not to use their characters for fan works but to create their own.

It´s basically the limited distribution of fan works that makes a company tolerate them. Most Japanese publishers have no problem with doujinshi, but recently, a Doraemon doujinshi actually outsold many regular publications and the doujin artists were asked to cease publication by the publisher that owns the legal rights to Doraemon.

In a similar way, even though DiM clearly has no right to produce and sell merchandise to a particular anime series or game, most copyright owners won´t mind as long as they only produce a limited run of 10 character heads on special commission. Technically, even if DiM does not lay claim to the characters, that is producing unlicensed merchandise to a series and does violate copyright, it´s just unlikely to get them in trouble.

If DiM offered the same heads in a larger or even open edition as part of their regular line, however, the copyright owners would be sure to step in.

The latter.

It doesn´t really matter if a particular merchandise is already on the market or not. The fact that a doll of a particular character is not (yet) - or no longer - available does not give anyone the right to produce and sell one (making/commissioning one for personal use is a different matter).

Unless someone is working for or with the company in some way, they have no way of telling whether an unlicensed product is hurting the sales of the licensed ones or not.

Even if there is no BJD of character XY available yet, there may be negotiations going on which may be influenced by the existence of the unlicensed version. I know for a fact some anime companies have consciously decided not to license and release particular series because the fansubs were so widely spread it was considered unlikely for the sales of the licensed DVD to break even.
In those cases, one could also have argued that there was no licensed version available for the fansubs to compete with, so nobody was hurt, no damage done - but there was: the copyright owner was unable to sell the license to that anime thanks to the unlicensed distribution. Just mentioning this as an example that the argument "there is no legal version of that product, so the illegal one doesn´t hurt anyone" doesn´t hold up.

 

Then what about fan-fiction and doujinshis? Thats the same in my opinion.
And what about copying clothes and designs. It's a really difficult question, and I don't think you can control every person on Earth.
By making dollfies that resembles anime or game characters, it just makes them more popular...like a kind of PR.

 

There's that old saying, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Perhaps a few doll heads are just not that threatening to to the original artists or celebs. I doubt Winona Ryder will be coming after me or DiM One can debate the law and ethics, but as maddening as it can be to be copied, it's also very flattering too.

 

Actually... I would really like to see the citation on that. Because what you're talking about sounds a lot more like trademark or intellectual property law and trade dress, not copyright law specifically. You can copyright a finished work -- a game, an image, a sculpture -- but not the idea itself. Copyright does zilch to protect an idea, only the specific expression of it. It's trademark/trade dress/likeness rights/intellectual property that begins to step into those other grey areas, but they should not be confused with copyright.

Related? Yes. The same? Not in the least. They're different areas of law with different conditions involved, even if they often overlap and intersect. Celebs might object under likeness rights. Anime, movie, or video game character creators, possibly under trademark for a character's appearance. While you can safely say, "There are some iffy legal issues involved," you can't just bundle them all up under the 'copyright' label and remain entirely accurate.

 

You raise a good point. A company making money off another companies copyrighted material doesn't seem right. Mostly for the fact that they are openly advertising that they make other companies characters.

Although, it may seem a bit more acceptable if someone bought the doll from the company, and then decided to give it a face-up themselves, for their own enjoyment, and when they go to sell that doll, they could make a bit more than they would have because of who it might look like.
it's a touchy subject, but if it's something that someone does as a hobby first and foremost, I would not think there would be much of a problem. However, a company doing it, and boasting that they'll make the character for you is a completely different thing.

 

I love legal issues like this. My husband IS a lawyer and in the trademark/copyright field so I ask him this sort of question for fun (and because I'm an artist who doesn't want to get sued!!)

Here's the answer. In short; it IS illegal ... period. Even Fanart is illegal to sell (if you give it away that's fine). There is an exception made for parody/satire, but even those are still illegal and must be defended in court IF someone should decide to pursue the case.

The fact that they are mostly made overseas doesn't matter, if the owner of the copyright wanted to they can still sue for all of the profits made on that item or a statutory amount per item sold as well as a cease and desist order, specifically because most countries have signed a treaty in the United Nations to protect copyrights. Which is why if you go to Europe and buy a bootleg copy of your favorite music you can still get into big trouble if its found out.

Whether or not the companies care enough to pursue legal action, or have enough money to do so, is irrelevant, it is still illegal.

Disney sued a daycare who had pictures painted of their characters on the outside of their center and no profits were even being made there from the use of their characters. They also sued a woman who had been mistakenly delivered a bolt of Mickey Mouse fabric who made toddler clothes from it and sold it at a flea market. Disney is most likely to sue in all cases. FF may not be, but in the end they have the legal right to do so.

Oh and just as an FYI on the daycare center; Hanna Barbara (creators of old favorites like Popeye, Superfriends, and Tom & Jerry) found out about this and gave the daycare center permission to use any and all of their characters free of charge.

So there it is and now you know

 

Hmm, it might not be entirely legal to some people but I don't think DIM are really doing anything morally wrong, it's not like they're saying here is a character WE designed called Cloud Strife. It's made perfectly clear that they are sculpting from the work of others so it's ok in my eyes.

 

I already known all of this, but it's a very good thing to state it again, but the problem is a lot will avoid that info, or don't care at all, because they don't still see that it is illegal and yes you can have problem .....

What I don't understand anyway is why some, who think that there is nothing "bad" doing this are often the same that scream out loud for copyright or use or their photos without permission, etc .... do what I say, not what I do ? Sorry if it has no meaning in english, I translate the french thing lol

I don't say that in this thread, those who don't think it is bad, or think that yes it is illegal but they hurt no one are those who will scream for photos uses, etc ...... but it happens often that some are the same persons and I find this almost funny. As long it will serve their pleasure there is nothing bad, as long it hurt their pleasure ( photos stolen) it's the end of the world.

But trust me, Disney would find out some ordered a Mickey, disney related doll, everybody would be sued badly

And it's not because it would be allowed in a country that it is allowed to others country, if I take as exemple fake handbags, the fake Vuitton will be allowed in X ( won't name any country) but will never be allowed in France, and even if you bought it in X you still risk the good fine, and you can even still risk jail ( seems it's easier and funniest to put in jail for a handbag than a murder in my country ~.~ ) well, I saw nobody going in jail for this but the fine can be insane ! Really insane, you could had buy a few genuine handbag with that lol

I blame nobody, that's the human nature that make us like this. Just keep in mind that it is illegal.

 

I don't know if the counterfeit idea works. Are they making counterfeit people? Recently I bought a head based on the singer Sting. The only way anyone looking at it would know it was based on Sting is because I would tell them. Otherwise it just looks like some guy, not really distinguishable from any other random guy you would see walking down the street. His facial features look Anglo Saxon, maybe a bit Germanic, but otherwise... just like many other male who have ancestry from northern/eastern Europe.. Many people in this world are facially similar to other people. Unless someone has some facial defect they are going to look like everyone else. It's in our DNA to begin to look homogeneous to other humans who share our same breeding pool.

As for anime characters... many of them look the same. And anime or manga works on the facial stereotypes. It's part of Japanese culture to look similar to what everyone else is doing and often times their anime or manga reflect that ideal. Why else do you think "bleaching the hair" is a rebellious act? Because most people have dark hair and bleaching makes the hair "look different" so it's considered rebellious. The older boy has a squarer chin and the "older" slitted eyes. Younger characters have the eyes that take up half of the face. Evil characters have smaller eyes... innocent characters have larger eyes. Eye shapes also come into play. The more shy or subtle character has the eyes that angle down / \ . Like "tired" or "sad" eyes. With this stereotype of character design going on, many characters drawn by different artists tend to look the same. It may be based on one character drawing... but really it fits a whole list of characters. What makes it a specific character are in the details like eye color and hair color and clothing... not in the face sculpt.

It is a western world ideal that admires individuality. Individuality in Japan... not so much. It is considered, "Weird" "Rebellious" and "Not to be trusted." The younger generation has embraced more of the western view of individuality, but not yet the older generation. The theme of "overcoming rebelliousness to become part of the group/team/class" is very common and reflects those ideals. So long story short... character design looking homogeneous to other character designs is encouraged as part of the group effort. Ergo... characters start to look very similar.

 

This actually would be pretty cool! I saw a doll recently done up to look like him in his portrayal of Sweeney Todd. I think Johnny would be flattered and yet...a little frightened.

I agree that SE would probably not worry about it. I think, though, that part of the fun of these doll is to make characters that one cannot necessarily just go out and find....for example, a Sweeney Todd or a Mrs. Lovett or, come to think of it, ANY character from Broadway, films, musicals, etc.

IMHO, I think having dolls of your favorite characters is great, but I'd prefer to see collectors steer toward more original and impossible-to-find dolls.